1. Field of the Invention
The present invention relates generally to wood chippers.
2. Description of the Related Art
It is known to provide a wood chipper for chipping wood such as brush, branches and the like to produce wood chips. One type of wood chipper known in the art includes a drum assembly having a rotatable drum with a knife or blade for chipping the wood entering the wood chipper and reducing it to wood chips. Typically, the wood chipper includes an outlet or discharge chute for allowing the wood chips from the drum assembly to exit the wood chipper. The chute is flush with an outlet of a housing for the drum assembly and extends upwardly and forwardly to discharge the wood chips past a hitch of the wood chipper. The chute may have a trap door, which is hinged to the chute to allow an operator to unplug the chute.
Although this type of wood chipper has worked well, it suffers from the disadvantage that the chute can become plugged under normal or extreme operating conditions. This may also result in the drum assembly becoming plugged with wood chips. Another disadvantage of the wood chipper is that, when the chute becomes plugged, it takes several hours to unplug the chute and/or drum assembly and resume operation of the wood chipper. Yet another disadvantage of the wood chipper is that dust may blow back on an operator infeeding wood into an inlet of the wood chipper.